The Egyptian stock exchange’s EGX 30 index on Sunday rose by 2.8 percent, or 180 points, to close at 6518, despite Greece’s unfolding financial crisis and its repercussions on the rest of the EU, especially Spain and Portugal, both of which have declared austerity plans.
Total dealings reached LE982 million, one third of which were for Orascom Telecom (OT) shares, which amounted to LE339.5 million.
Market capital reached LE425 million for the period, adding LE5 million to last week’s closing figure.
OT, South Valley Cement, Orascom Construction Industries, Ezz Steel and Talaat Mostafa Group all rose by between 0.5 and13 percent, while Palm Hills and Nasr City Housing both fell slightly.
The highest jump was in OT shares, which rose by 13 percent to hit LE6.2 among dealings in over 55 million shares.
“Sunday was the first time that transactions in the Egyptian stock exchange were not affected by the Greek financial crisis,” said financial expert Maher Gamea.
On the regional level, the stock exchanges of Kuwait, Muscat and Bahrain all gained slightly, while Saudi Arabia, Amman, Dubai and Abu Dhabi fell by between 0.2 and 1.5 percent.
In Lisbon, about 300,000 people protested on Sunday against a government austerity plan that aims to reduce the budget deficit to 3 percent by 2013 through cutting wages, suspending pensions and increasing taxes, in accordance with EU requests.
Spain, for its part, declared measures aimed at saving some 15.3 billion euros by 2011.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
